another reason not to run...

Riding in Belgium

I was in Belgium for a week or so for a conference. I took my bike so I could do a few rides in one of the great areas of the world for riding. There are so many famous races in Belgium its hard to count. Most are one day classics. I was in Leuven and rode down into the Ardennes around Liege a couple of times. This hilly area is a lot like the area around Blacksburg. I went on a 90 and 95 mile ride. The first ride was great with great weather. The second ride was also great but I got dumped on three separate times. It wasn't too cold so getting met wasn't so bad. I rode up the Mur de Huy which is a famous climb from the Fleche Wallone. The climb is 1.3km and averages around 10% I think. There are sections above 20% which make it brutal. Some german guy wanted to race me to the top so I beat him. Another guy was there so we took pictures of each other. Good fun!

Amalia swimming

Lisa decided its time for Amalia to learn to swim so she signed her up for lessons. These are run on campus and really the teachers are students who don't seem to do much with the young kids but let the parents ease the kids into the water so the kids aren't scared. Lisa has been taking her swimming Tuesday and Thursday mornings and its been going well. Amalia seems comfortable in the water and has even dunked her head. 

We also took Amalia to the county pool yesterday and she had great fun on the slide. It was hot out so the pool was super crowded. Its sad how many american kids are fat but thats the subject of another post. 

another 5K

So last friday I did the Shawsville 5K for the 4th of July. This race was at 8am, almost exactly opposite the time of my last race. The good thing is that the temperature was a lot cooler during the morning race. So I got 7th place overall, won my age group, and did a 17:42. Thats about 50sec faster than a week ago in a race that was real similar in profile. Guess cooler weather is better. I was real happy with the time.

5K

Saturday evening was a Summer Solstice Fest here in Blacksburg. As part of it they had an evening 5k that went right by our house. I figured I might as well do it and actually have been targeting it, sort of. The gun went off and we were running. There were lots of highschool kids and a few college runners. I was immediately in the top 10 and stayed there the whole race. I finished in 6th overall, first in my age-group, with a time of 18:31 for an average of 5:59/mile. I was pretty happy. The funny thing is that a 14 year old kid flew by me in the last half mile going downhill. He was just striding out and I was trying not to stumble and fall! I wore the heartrate monitor and averaged 190bpm with a max of 199. Ouch. Amalia and Lisa watched me run by and apparently Amalia was unhappy that she wasn't allowed to run after me. She's a good coach!

mtb race

Well, yesterday was father's day and the day for one the two local mountain bike races. This one was the dirty dawg, in contrast to the rowdy dawg that occurs in the fall. I did the 15 mile race, instead of the 21 mile variety. The race was up at Mountain Lake and it was a perfect day. I started kind of fast and rode well. I outclimbed everyone in my race but was slower downhill than just about everyone in my race. It didn't help that I was on a single speed with no suspension and everyone else had lots of gears and all had front, and many full, suspension. In any case, I like the light weight and simplicity of my bike. In the end I took second place and was less than a minute behind the winner. Best of all, Lisa brought Amalia up to see the finish! That was great!

Grandparents Moore visit

Last weekend my folks visited, Ana for 4 days and then Tom visited for the last 2 days. Amalia was super excited to have them visit. She spent lots of time with grandma and even showed off her hand washing skills!

On Sunday we went for a hike and Amalia had a great time. She hiked for at least a mile on her own and otherwise Lisa carried her in her arms or I carried her in the backpack. She had a great time climbing on the rocks but especially had fun with the wildlife. We saw snakes, turtles, butterflies, deer, and a toad that was probably her favorite.